


so it goes

by manusinistra



Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 18:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1521182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manusinistra/pseuds/manusinistra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paige notices Emily during tryouts. She has a strong kick, good form on her strokes, and the shiniest hair Paige has ever seen.</p>
<p>Paige-centric, canon compliant. Pre-series to 1x17.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. she's the sea i'm sinking in

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is meant to flesh out the character background for Paige that the show hints at. As PLL puts Paige through a lot, it's not a particularly happy story. Trigger warnings for self-injury and suicidal thoughts. Neither are graphic, but be aware that they're coming (though I'll also warn in the chapters where they happen).

Paige notices Emily during tryouts. She has a strong kick, good form on her strokes, and the shiniest hair Paige has ever seen.

They both make the team, the only freshmen selected for varsity. Paige thinks it’ll be nice – maybe they can be friends, deal with things together.

When Paige tells her father, this is what he says:  _she’s your competition, that girl. Never forget it. Scouts don’t recruit the second best_.

 ;;

The first day of practice the team circles up before hitting the water. The older girls know each other already; they laugh and tease, introduce themselves via inside jokes.

Emily seems to be shy: her voice is soft during icebreakers and she never says more than is required of her. She’s polite, unfailingly so, but it’s hard to engage her in conversation.

Her times speak for themselves, anyway.

;;

They win their first meet. Paige sets a couple personal bests, but Emily out-touches her in freestyle.

Afterwards there’s a team gathering at a senior’s house, with pizza and ice cream and a Mean Girls showing. There’s a karaoke machine, too, and when it’s Paige’s turn she jumps on the coffee table and belts out Britney Spears. She can’t sing for her life but it doesn’t matter, she shimmies and twirls and makes a fool of herself in at least twelve different ways. It’s the best time, and when she’s done she gets enthusiastic applause.

She bows, still up on the table, catching Emily’s eye as she straightens. Emily is smiling at her but it drops as soon as Paige points the microphone her way.

She shakes her head, shrinks back into a corner.

;;

“She seems kind of stuck up,” one of the juniors says Monday, before Emily gets to the locker room.

“She could just be reserved.”

“I don’t know. It feels like she sits there judging all of us.”

“Paige, what do you think? You probably know her better than we do.”

Paige shrugs.

“We’re not really close.”

The door swings open and Emily is there; all conversation ceases abruptly. Emily must notice, must know what’s implied in that kind of silence. It’s not obvious, her reaction, but it’s there: her back straightens and her shoulders tense, like she’s bracing herself for enemy fire.

There’s a lurch in Paige’s stomach.

After practice, she packs up slowly. Coach Fulton kept Emily late for something, and Paige wants a chance to talk to her. The rest of the team is gone by the time she appears, a grin illuminating her features. She’s more unguarded than Paige has ever seen her, and it strikes Paige how pretty she is.

“Good news?”

Emily startles, her grin fading.

“I’m swimming butterfly in the medley this week.”

“Congratulations,” Paige says, and she means it – it’s a big deal for freshmen to break into the relays.

(Her father’s words prick at the back of her mind.)

“Thanks.”

Emily’s looking at the ground, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Discomfort radiates out of her, and it reminds Paige of her purpose here.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry for earlier. It’s not something people should do, talk about teammates behind their back.”

“I doubt you were the one who started it.”

“I didn’t stop it, though. And I should have.”

Emily’s eyes lock onto hers. The strength of her gaze surprises Paige, who had taken her passivity for weakness. That’s wrong, she sees now – Emily may be quiet but there’s fire in her. She won’t be easily beaten, Paige realizes, equal parts thrilled and apprehensive.

“It’s ok.” Emily sighs, sinking down on the bench beside Paige. “I just wish I were better with new people. I never know what to say.”

“You’re doing pretty well now.”

“There’s only one of you. That’s easier.”

Emily smiles; an answering grin pulls at Paige’s lips. Neither of them speaks for a moment, and a charge builds in the air between them. Paige breathes it in, feels her body tingle.

She clears her throat.

“I don’t think it’s about you being good with people,” she says. “I think the upperclassmen feel threatened.”

Emily makes a face.

“No, I’m serious. You’re improving really quickly, your times are already better than half the seniors’, and, I mean. You’re gorgeous. It can be kind of intimidating.”

Paige can’t quite decipher the look Emily gives her then. There’s a calculation happening in Emily’s eyes, and Paige wishes she knew its variables, the means by which it might be solved. Then, without warning, Emily’s face goes blank. Her eyes shutter, emptied of meaning. The change is sudden and total and Paige feels it like a fist to the gut.

“Thank you, I think,” Emily says, and then she’s moving to her locker, moving away from Paige.

Paige hangs around, keeps conversation going through sheer force of will. She has Emily laughing by the time they walk out into the hall, and it’s the same kind of satisfying as shaving a second off her race time.

“I’ve been waiting, Emily,” a voice says. Paige turns to see Alison Dilaurentis.

The humor drains from Emily; she lowers her eyes, submissive, contrite. A puzzle piece falls into place for Paige – if you’re used to Alison, of course you won’t know how to interact with actual human beings.

When Alison notices Paige her expression sours.

“What’re you looking at, no-neck,” she growls.

Paige rolls her eyes.

“Lovely to see you, too,” she says, and heads off down the hall.

;;

They’re friendly after that, though Emily still feels more like acquaintance than friend.

She waves at Paige in the hall, says “good morning” in the locker room and “great race” when Paige places in backstroke at the county meet. She never hangs out longer than she has to, though, always hurrying off to the people who get to know more than just her surface.

Paige watches Emily with those people, with Alison and the others caught in her gravity. She watches without conscious decision - occasionally at first, then more and more, until one day at lunch Emily catches her, returns her gaze from across the room with raised eyebrows and a curious smile. Paige looks away, cheeks burning red.

;;

That spring Paige has gym with Alison.

It’s fine, at first. Better than fine. Paige is good at gym; she’s trained her body to move fast and far and with precision, and it shows in whatever sport they happen to play.

Alison isn’t unathletic, but she shrinks down to size on a playing field. Elsewhere, propped up by friends and clothes and cutting words it’s hard to get the measure of her. She seems larger than life, a force of nature; you duck your head and hope to survive. In gym, though, she’s just a body – a body that isn’t practiced to perfection, that betrays weakness, frustration, incompetence.

Paige hasn’t experienced the worst of Alison; there are more obvious targets, and Alison’s never been one to pass up easy prey. Still, she’s had it bad enough to relish blocking Alison’s shot in basketball, scoring on her in soccer or finishing a mile ten seconds faster. Her grin is cocky whenever that happens, and she does nothing to keep it from being seen.

She’s had it bad enough, too, to be wary when Alison starts changing next to her in the locker room. It’s a conscious move by Alison – locker rooms are the part of gym Paige doesn’t like, and she always camps out alone in a corner. Or she was alone, at least, until one day Alison walks in and throws her bag down two feet from Paige. She flashes Paige a smile, honeyed and vicious.

“I needed a change of scenery,” she says and takes off her shirt.

;;

At the end of swim season dinner Emily sits next to Paige. They’re crowded into a booth, pressed tight together. Paige can feel Emily’s every movement, the rise of her chest and the rumble of her laugh. As they eat their arms brush against each other.

Heat settles low in Paige’s stomach. When she excuses herself to the bathroom her face is flushed.

;;

A boy asks Paige to the spring dance. His name is Sam. They’re lab partners in biology.

He has warm brown eyes and an easy smile. Girls seem to like him, generally.

“I have to ask my dad,” she says instead of an answer.

Her father says no, as she knew he would.  _You deserve better than a C-average student with no discernable ambition._  He’s strict, but there are ways around him for the things she really wants. It’s worrying that Sam is not one of them.

;;

The night of the dance she sits at home with her history book. She tries to imagine what it would be like, slow dancing with Sam, feeling his hands settle on her waist. She can conjure the image but not the sensation, like she’s watching a movie of someone else’s life.

When she thinks of the kiss she’d get at the end of the night his brown eyes shift into Emily’s.


	2. nothing and nowhere is golden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for self-injury in this chapter.

Paige doesn’t see Emily much, now that swimming is over.

She makes sure not to see Emily – to face away from her table in the cafeteria, to be texting someone when she walks by in the hall. It’s not easy: Emily pulls at Paige, and she feels it even in turning her back.

She tells herself that it’s bound to stop, that if she fights long enough she can beat anything.

(This might be a lie. The pull is as stubborn as she is, and every time she thinks it’s gone she hears Emily laugh and it flares in her until there’s no room left to breathe.)

;;

The pool opens Tuesdays and Thursdays from three to six.

Paige doesn’t miss a day. Other people come sometimes, sophomores from the boys’ team, random adults, but more often than not she has the pool to herself. She likes it that way; things make sense when she’s alone with the water.

Her father has Coach Fulton write up a workout plan. Each day Paige does ten minutes more than it asks of her.

You may win at meets, but breakthroughs happen in the offseason.

;;

Emily gets into the lunch line behind Paige.

“Hey,” she says. “How have you been?”

The line is long – it’s lasagna day – so there’s no escaping a conversation.

“Can’t complain. You?”

“I’m good. I hear you’ve been hitting the pool pretty hard. After my relay spot?”

“They say competition brings out the best in people.”

“In that case, how about training together sometime?”

Paige is quiet too long, caught between reason and the thing Emily brings out in her, the thing she’s trying not to put a name to. Emily looks down; Paige can feel her folding into herself.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to. Coach just thought it might be good for us.”

“No, I want to.” That’s the problem, Paige thinks, how much I want to. “Company would be nice. I’m at the pool pretty much whenever it’s open.”

“Great.” Emily takes her tray, turning toward her usual table. “I’ll see you soon.”

Paige watches her go, feels the weight of Alison’s glare.

;;

The sermon that week is about the limits of God’s forgiveness.

Paige isn’t sure she believes; she’s not like her father, with his bedrock certainty. His God is more real than the house they live in, than the family he wakes up to every morning. She isn’t sure she believes but she’s also not sure she doesn’t, and when the priest speaks of sin against nature tightness spreads through her chest.

After the service, people gather in the parking lot. Paige stands to the side as they shake her father’s hand and tell him how pretty she’s turning out to be.

Her smile freezes when talk turns to moral decay, the liberal agenda and all its perversions.

;;

In gym Alison takes to dressing slowly – to spending as much time undressed as possible.

Paige tries not to see but Alison is there all the time, forcing her way into Paige’s field of vision. Her skin looks as smooth as she is cruel; want rises in Paige, sharp and desperate. She slams her eyes shut but it doesn’t help. The image is there inside her eyelids.

She realizes that maybe Emily isn’t the problem. Maybe something inside her is wrong.

“Like what you see, you freak,” Alison whispers, close enough her breath tickles Paige’s ear.

;;

On bad days Paige lets herself sink down into the pool. Underwater everything is smooth and still. Her mind quiets and there’s just the beating of her heart, the pressure building inside her lungs.

She sits on the bottom for as long as she can, watching light dance the line between water and air.

That’s how Emily finds her the first time she comes. Her face appears above Paige, shimmering in the water’s surface.

Paige chokes in water, shoots up spluttering.

“Are you ok?”

Emily is kneeling at the pool’s edge.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“What were you doing?”

Paige shrugs, water rippling around her.

“I like it down there.”

Emily just looks at her. It’s an intense kind of looking, like there’s a riddle to her Emily’s trying to solve.

“Anyway,” Paige says, “were you going to swim?”

Emily nods and dives in, graceful as always. Paige knows the moment she breaks the surface – it feels different, sharing the water with her.

They swim an easy 50 before Emily starts picking up the pace. Paige matches her stroke for stroke; she revels in the stretch of her arms, in delaying the moment Emily pulls ahead. Only it doesn’t happen – they touch the side at the same time, and Emily’s breathing is the more ragged. Paige had another gear left to shift into, and it’s a rush, proving that if she works hard enough she can actually change things, that she isn’t destined to always be second best.

They swim for over an hour, going through the workout Paige had planned and then racing a few times for the fun of it.

When they’re done they sit on the pool’s lip, feet dangling into the water.

“I don’t remember you being this fast,” Emily says.

“I wasn’t.”

“I may really have to watch my back for the relay, then.”

“Nah. I’m never going to catch you in butterfly. I’d love to swim the backstroke leg, though.”

“I think you’ve got it next year. Caitlin’s graduating, and if you keep this up you’ll beat her times anyway.”

“You think?”

“Yeah, I do.” Emily catches her eye. “You’re really good, Paige. You must know that.”

Paige sighs, kicking at the water.

“What is it?”

“I just never seem to be good enough for my dad.”

“Then he’s an idiot.”

Emily moves a hand to Paige’s knee, and though the air is cold Paige feels warm all over. She smiles at Emily and Emily smiles back and it becomes the kind of moment that can lead to something. So Paige thinks, at least – it feels the way she’s always imagined those moments, electric and giddy and dangerous, like a fuse has blown in the logic that patterns the world, leaving endless possibility.

The possibility doesn’t materialize, though, because the pool door opens and whatever was building between them shatters. Emily jumps up, grabs at her bag.

“I’ve got to go,” she says, and Paige can read nothing in her eyes.

;;

The dreams start that night, the dreams about Emily kissing girls.

It’s never Paige she’s kissing – even in dream Paige doesn’t get to know how that feels.

;;

It’s an accident the first time it happens.

Paige is in the shower, shaving, trying to forget what she dreamed last night. It’s stuck in her head – Alison kissing Emily, winking at Paige over Emily’s shoulder.  _You might as well watch. You’ll never get to taste._

There’s a burning in Paige’s chest and another between her thighs and she’s trying so hard not to acknowledge either of them that there’s no attention left to guide her hand. The razor slips; there’s a burst of pain and then red stains the white of her bathtub.

Paige doesn’t notice. Her mind has gone perfectly, blissfully blank.

;;

It’s not an accident all the times after that.

When her father tells her she needs to try harder, when her grandfather dies and her mother can’t stop crying, when she’s drowning in thoughts of Emily. All those times it’s a way to survive.

Paige needs to feel in control of something, even if it’s just how much she hurts.

;;

It changes the way she inhabits her body. She learns to move with care and avoid things that might give her away. Her ease withers; tension coils in her muscles even when they’re at rest.

It changes the way she is with people, too. She learns to make her words cut so that no one has the chance to look too closely at her.

She tries not to talk to Emily.

;;

Alison is the one who sees.

Paige is late to gym, has to ask her math teacher about retaking a test and so it’s just Alison in the locker room when she gets there. Alison doesn’t rush – she’s above punctuality, apparently – but Paige shucks off her clothes with abandon, forgetting the secret scarred into her skin. It’s only once her gym uniform is on that she realizes what she’s just done. She looks at Alison, exhales in relief at Alison’s focus on her cell phone.

Who knows what would happen, if someone like –

“Nice rash you have there, Pigskin. Hope it’s not catching.”

And just like that, Paige’s world shatters. Alison knows: it’s there in her tone, in the perfect brutality of her smile. She knows but she won’t speak it yet, because she knows as well that there’s power in words when they go unsaid.

Alison glosses her lips. They glisten, pretty and bright.

Paige hates herself for looking.

;;

They play soccer that day.

Alison guards Paige. She’s lazy at it, like she thinks there’s no need to compete, like she thinks she’s already won. Anger boils up in Paige, overwhelming her fear.

She sprints for a pass near the goal. Alison shoves her from behind; Paige shoves back harder, sending Alison to the ground.

Paige has a line to the goal but Alison’s body is in the way. She takes the shot. The ball goes in, but that’s less satisfying than the feel of her foot against Alison’s back.


	3. they'll sharpen their teeth on your smile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for suicidal thoughts.

Paige watches the bruise darken Alison’s shoulder, waits for things to detonate.

She’s lit the fuse. There’s no going back now.

;;

A letter appears in her locker.

She reaches for it, dread slowing her hand. The envelope is small and light blue, the kind that comes with matching stationery. As she tears it open Paige wonders what it’d be like to be a normal girl – to get a mysterious letter and think, “who’s my secret admirer” rather than “will this be the thing that brings my life down around me”.

The letter says this:

_I see the way you look at me. Don’t worry – I like it. I look at you that way, too._

The name at the bottom is Emily Fields.

;;

Paige doesn’t know how she gets to the bathroom but that’s where she ends up, locked into the furthest stall. Her heart is hammering; she feels stripped of breath and tingly all over, like she mistimed a dive off the high platform.

She’s holding the letter. Her hands shake so badly it’s hard to read.

_I can’t stop thinking about you._

_My boyfriend suspects something. He’s started checking my phone. The only way I get through kissing him is pretending he’s you._

_I need to know if you feel like this, too._

The letter keeps going. In it are all the things Paige fights not to think about.

She’s never considered that someone could do this – claim these words, put them down on paper and send them boldly out into the world. She’s never imagined you could do anything but hide.

She stays there with the letter the whole of sixth period, reading and rereading, branding its words into her memory. She runs her fingers over Emily’s name and imagines the softness of Emily’s skin.

Hope sparks in Paige, flickers to life.

;;

She writes her own letter, like Emily asked her to.

She types it first: if she’s tying herself to these words she needs to get them right, and she can’t afford for there to be evidence of the wrong ones. Her mother sometimes looks through what she throws in the trash.

It takes her hours, and she only stops tweaking sentences when her father knocks at her door.

“We’re going running tomorrow morning,” he says. “You should really be getting to sleep.”

;;

She lies awake for a long time, thoughts spinning through her head. She doesn’t fight them. She lets her fantasies take flight; there’s no reason not to. The world has opened up, and everything seems possible now that she knows Emily is like her.

(Now that she knows Emily  _likes_  her.)

She dreams of holding Emily’s hand.

;;

She’s to put her note under a boutique sign downtown.

Emily probably won’t be there, she knows, but she goes through five different outfits before she makes it out of the house. She’s always made fun of girls who get like this, fluttery and indecisive, but it’s nice, having someone she wants to look good for, feeling anticipation itch under her skin.

;;

Emily isn’t there. Alison is.

Paige watches, frozen, as she walks closer, willing her presence to be circumstance. She knows it’s not the moment Alison smiles.

Of course, she thinks. Of course it was a trick.

It’s the only thing that makes sense, really. Someone like Emily could never want someone like her, and she was an idiot for believing otherwise. She’s too caught in berating herself for her stupidity to stop Alison from getting her note.

“Should I open it here, or should I just forward it to daddy? Is he still that big ole deacon at the church?”

Paige lunges for the note but it’s no use – Alison’s not giving it up. She’s got in her hand everything she needs to destroy Paige, a weapon whose fallout would be nuclear.

“I own you now,” she snarls before turning and making her getaway.

Her hips sway under her pretty dress and Paige has never hated anyone more.

;;

After Alison leaves she can’t catch her breath. The faster she gulps in air the more it feels like she’s suffocating and she must stand there for a while because the girl from the boutique comes out to ask if she’s ok.

“I’m fine,” Paige says, panic rising. She can’t handle people seeing her, not with all that Alison has laid bare.

“You don’t look fine.”

Other people are starting to notice her now and with each new pair of eyes the pressure in her chest doubles. She throws herself onto her bike – she needs to get away, away from the stares, away from the traces of Alison’s presence that hang in the air and poison her breath.

“Hey, wait!”

She doesn’t listen. She focuses on the feel of the pedals beneath her feet and tries to keep from tipping over. A car honks at her; there’s something wrong with her vision and she keeps straying out of the bike lane.  She just makes it to the outskirts of town before she veers off the road and crashes into the grass.

She presses her face down into the ground, latches on to the smell of it and the way her knees burn from the impact. Slowly she comes back to herself.

It’s a mixed blessing, because though her lungs feel clearer her mind has already started running through all the things Alison could do. She could send the note to Paige’s father or show it to Emily (and that might be worse, Emily’s look of disgust) or use it to ruin Paige’s life a dozen other ways.

Paige thinks of going to school Monday and waiting to see what Alison does, feeling the threat hang over her for weeks, months, years, even. It could be that long; Alison’s smart enough to know that waiting is the worst part, waiting and waiting until it becomes the whole of your life and you stop caring what happens so long as the waiting ends.

Paige doesn’t know if she can manage it.

All the hope has drained out of her.  It feels like she’s been exhausted for years.

;;

Her family has a lake house outside town. It’s within biking distance, if you’re going one way.

They used to stay there in the summers when Paige was little, before her parents got so busy with work. It’s where she learned to swim, or so she’s been told; she doesn’t remember a time she wasn’t at home in the water.

The house is right by the shore. There’s a dock that stretches out beyond the shallows, weathered wood that time has worn smooth. Paige stands at its end, takes off her shoes. The dock is warm beneath her feet.

The lake looks so peaceful. A fish jumps twenty yards out; a bird naps on one leg among the reeds. It would be so easy to sink down into the lake and never come up. She knows how soft the water feels here, how different it is from the pool’s chemical burn. It would barely even hurt, breathing it in.

She can’t do it, though. Her feet stick to the dock when she tries to move them, when she tries to put an end to things. All she can see is how satisfied it would make Alison. She would win, again, and Paige would go down in history as a footnote to her evil. She’d never get the chance to beat Alison.

Paige can’t let that happen. Resolve strengthens in her – she has to survive. She’ll keep her head down and weather the blows and one day she’ll look back on this moment as her first step down the path to victory.

;;

The ride home is painful.

The miles weigh on her, the five she ran with her dad, the fifteen it takes to get to the lake. Her legs ache and salt crusts the scabs on her knees. The chills running through her signal dangerous levels of dehydration.

The thought of Alison keeps her going.

By the time she nears home it’s late and she’s a mess; there’s no way she’ll get past her parents without explanation. She finds a broken bottle beside the road, stabs at her tire until it deflates. She walks her bike the rest of the way.

“Sweetie, what happened?” her mother says when she opens the door.

“Wiped out. There was glass in the road and my tire’s blown. Sorry I’m so late.”

“Are you ok?”

Her mother gathers her into a hug. It’s all she can do to keep from crying.

“My knees got pretty torn up.”

Her mother sits her down at the kitchen table, fusses over her with Neosporin and bandages. Her touch is gentle and warm, and Paige thinks about telling her everything.

Light glints off the cross at her neck.

Paige doesn’t say a word.

;;

Emily stops her on the way to English Monday.

“Haven’t seen you at the pool lately,” she says.

Paige trains her eyes on the ground. It hurts, looking at Emily.

“My folks filled the one at home. I’ve been swimming there.”

“Must be nice. I’d love to be able to swim any time I wanted.”

Emily breaks off into silence. Last week Paige would’ve filled it with an invitation, would’ve been thrilled to have Emily in her pool. Now she looks off down the hall, wondering where Alison might be.

“Any chance you’d give up the outdoors tomorrow? I wanted to see where my times are at, and it’d be great if I had someone to race against.”

“I can’t.”

“Thursday? Or even next week. Coach should be around to –”

“Emily.”

Paige looks her in the eye. For once Emily is transparent, confusion and hurt clearly coming through.

Paige hardens herself against it. She can’t afford to care now. Caring is what made her weak; it’s why she fell for Alison’s trick when she should’ve known better.

She makes her words bite.

“I said I can’t. Please let me go to class.”

She leaves without waiting for a reply.

“Good girl,” Alison purrs, materializing as Paige rounds the corner.

Paige keeps walking.

One day she’ll win.


	4. haven't you seen me sleepwalking

Alison doesn’t come back to school for sophomore year.

The first day everyone thinks it’s a prank. Word is an older guy whisked her off somewhere, and since this is Alison Paige can almost believe it. It’d be so like her, to get everyone talking and then stage her grand entrance a week into school.

After a week, though, there are stories on the news – girl missing, no leads, if you have information please call. Policemen wander the halls, pulling people from class for questioning.

Paige’s curfew goes from ten to eight.

;;

Emily’s group of friends disintegrates.

With Aria in Iceland there’s not enough of them left to fill a lunch table. They splinter off in different directions: Spencer throws herself into school, Hanna popularity, and when swimming starts up Emily sits with the team.

Paige sits with the team, too, and if it was hard to ignore Emily from across the room there are no words for the way it is now. She’s hyperaware of Emily’s body: the knee brushing hers beneath the table, the hand reaching across her for a napkin. The faintest whisper of touch sets emotion roiling in Paige, want and guilt and anger all tangled together.

She can’t see Emily without seeing the letter, can’t think of Emily without Alison being there, too.

She doesn’t move, though. That would be running away, admitting defeat.

She sits across from Emily and makes herself look:

Emily is next to Ben, who drapes his arm around her in unthinking possession. Emily shifts under it but doesn’t protest. Though they’ve been dating a while Ben has never seemed important; Emily isn’t one of those girls who lose themselves in the person they’re with. She never was, at least, though now that Alison is gone it’s rare to find her without Ben. Which makes sense, Paige supposes, but there’s something odd about it, something that doesn’t click.

He’s always there, but Paige can’t remember a time Emily looked truly happy to see him.

Emily glances up, catches Paige watching. She leans in closer to Ben’s side.

;;

They take Alison’s name off the attendance sheets.

No one mentions it. One day she’s just gone.

;;

“So, Paige. Who have you got your eye on?”

It’s the new captain asking. Gossip is her preferred means of team bonding: she’s put that question to nearly everyone, and Paige has been dreading her turn to answer.

She pauses in rummaging through her locker.

“No one. The male population here isn’t exactly inspiring.”

“There’s got to be someone.” 

"Yeah, come on, Paige,” a junior chimes in. “You’re always so secretive. I’ve never heard about you dating anyone.”

“That’s because I haven’t.” Paige slams her locker closed, heart beating fast. “I can’t. My dad’s really strict.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t think about it. So, who do you like?”

Now the whole team is paying attention.

“Troy Sattler’s cute.”

The words sound wrong, fake and flat. She can feel everyone noticing – she’s failing at this and she can’t afford to. If she’s unconvincing it’s only a matter of time before someone starts asking why, and she can’t handle that happening again. She barely survived it the first time.

“I mean,” she says, forcing energy into her voice. “Have you seen his abs? They’re  _delectable_.”

Smiles spread around the room.

“Good choice,” someone says, and then the Troy Sattler appreciation society is off and running.

Paige takes her time packing up. She listens for Emily’s voice, tries not to wonder what it means that she doesn’t hear it.

;;

Life should be easier with Alison gone.

In some ways it is. Paige stops expecting to find her father volcanic with rage, eyes wild, her note crushed in his fist. She starts thinking in terms of weeks, then months, because it’s no longer a question whether she’ll make it through the day.

In some ways, though, nothing changes. She still hears Alison inside her head and now there’s no secret she doesn’t know.

;;

When Coach Fulton posts the lineup the team crowds in to see it.

Paige’s name is there in the medley. She got backstroke, and for a moment everything else falls away. It’s all that matters, that she’s been working towards this forever and now finally she has it, that she’s won it over everyone else.

She feels lighter than she has in months.

There’s a hand on her shoulder.

“Congratulations,” Emily says.

Paige doesn’t think; she tackles Emily into a hug. Emily staggers back but after a second her arms close around Paige.

It’s lovely and warm, and when Emily whispers “you really deserve it” – forget the water. Paige is flying.

;;

Their first meet comes against Sheridan Prep. It’s more of a scrimmage, really: Sheridan is small and though they have some respectable swimmers there’s no way it should be close overall.

Paige stretches with Emily, warming up for the medley relay. It kicks off the meet, and since the backstroke leg comes first Paige will be the one to set the tone for the day.

She’s terrified. Individual races are old hat by now, but she’s not used to other people depending on her performance: if she screws up here they all pay the price. And this is  _the_  relay for Rosewood – last year the medley team placed at State’s.

“Nervous?” Emily says.

She wobbles in stretching her quad; her hand finds Paige’s shoulder for balance. The frissons of anxiety shooting through Paige multiply.

“Just that you’ll lose the lead I get you.”

Paige can hear the shaking in her own voice.

Emily smiles.

“You know I won’t.”

“Alright, ladies,” Coach Fulton says, appearing next to them. “It’s time.”

Paige smooths down her swim cap, snaps on her goggles. She takes a deep breath.

“You’ll be great,” Emily says.

;;

When the starting bell sounds Paige’s anxiousness gives way to adrenaline.

The water feels good rushing around her. Everything feels good. She doesn’t even mind the crowd’s gaze, because this she can do; she doesn’t have to fake here.

By the halfway point she’s got a solid lead. When her energy flags in the homestretch, her shoulders aching with how fast she started, she turns her opponent into Alison. She doesn’t feel the pain after that, just reaches and reaches until her hand hits the wall. She’s out of the water before the girl from Sheridan touches the side.

;;

They win the relay, and then the meet. It’s a good day for Paige. Her times are faster than last year’s across the board, and she beats Emily by half a second in the hundred free. 

Her father smiles when she finds him in the stands.

“Good effort today,” he says.

Coach Fulton comes over to say hello, and he corrals her into a twenty-minute discussion. She’s in such a good mood that she lets him keep talking – they beat Sheridan by more than they’d expected – and so it’s late when Paige extricates herself to head to the locker room.

The lights are out, and she assumes that it’s empty. She realizes it’s not only after the door has closed behind her.

There’s a sniffling coming from one of corners, close to where her locker is. It’s a wet, quiet sound, the kind that goes with tears you don’t want to be seen.

She leaves the lights off.

“Hello?” she says, feeling her way around a bend.

Emily is there, sitting on the bench by her locker. She’s been crying – is still crying, judging from the way she hides her face.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were here. I can just grab my bag and go.” Paige pauses. “Or I can stay, if you want.”

Emily looks up, and the pain in her eyes takes Paige’s breath away.

She’s got something in her hands. They’re shaking so badly it takes Paige a while to realize it’s that bracelet she’s always wearing, the beaded one that spells out her name.

Paige sits near her, moving slowly. She listens as Emily’s breathing evens, wonders whether she should touch Emily’s hand.

When Emily speaks her eyes are on the bracelet.

“I was really nervous for this last year. The first high school meet, my first time swimming varsity. Alison knew I was worried so she came. Seeing her in the crowd, knowing she was there for me. It felt like I could do anything. I looked for her today, after the relay. I forgot for a second she’ll never be there again.”

Emily’s voice turns ragged on the last sentence. She swallows, pulling herself together.

“She could be awful. But she wasn’t always. She was my best friend, and I just – ”

And then she’s crying too hard to keep going. Paige reaches for her, pulling Emily into her body. It’s awkward - they don’t fit together like this, sitting sideways on the bench. Paige doesn’t care; she has to do something. Hearing Emily cry feels like fire ants swarming inside her chest.

“She might come back,” Paige says.

As she speaks the words, she wishes for it to happen. Alison reappearing would screw up her life, but this is worse, seeing Emily broken. It’d be worth it to spare her this.

Emily jerks away.

“She won’t. She’s dead. Everyone thinks it and no one will say it and I wish people would just stop pretending.”

Paige leans back, hands raised in surrender.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry.” Emily sighs. “It’s just been a rough day.”

“I noticed. You didn’t even break a record today.”

Emily is quiet for what feels like forever. Then she laughs, a short, surprised burst of sound, and Paige lets out the breath she’d been holding.

“You were closer than me. What was your backstroke time, like a tenth off?”

“Two,” Paige says, lowering her eyes to the ground. “Anyway, I should go. My dad doesn’t like having to wait.”

Emily nods. She looks better, less like she’s about to shatter.

Paige gets her things. She pauses at the door, looks back over her shoulder.

She wants to say this: I’m around if you ever need to talk.

The words stick in her throat, caught between the danger in Emily’s touch and the cruelty of Alison’s smile.


	5. waiting on rumors of summer

Things settle into a rhythm.

Paige goes from school to swimming to homework to church, and while it’s not the most thrilling of routines it’s one she can deal with. It helps to be overcommitted: with every day scheduled down to the minute there’s less chance for her mind to wander into dangerous places. She doesn’t have to think, can just slide from one activity into the next and wait for time to accumulate.

She works out ways to contain Emily: she can talk to Emily about swimming but not about people, can touch her shoulder or arm but not give her a hug. Before long Emily picks up on where the lines are, goes out of her way not to cross them. Paige is grateful (and disappointed).

Then they find Alison’s body, and the world turns crazy again.

;;

Paige goes to the funeral with her family.

_The whole town will be there_ , her father says.  _It wouldn’t be proper for us to miss it._

They sit toward the back of the church – not theirs, the other one in town, bigger and more spectacular. Up front there’s a portrait of Alison, a lacquered black coffin surrounded by flowers. Paige wishes she could pry it open, see the flesh rotting away from bone and know for sure she’s beyond Alison’s reach.

Emily sits in the first pew, the place of honor. She comes in with Spencer; Hanna soon joins them and when Aria appears they make room for her, too. They look incredible, and with good reason: people are here to see them as much as the service. Rosewood’s collective gaze presses down on them, presses them together, and by the time they leave the church they’re a unit again.

Come lunch Monday they’re back at their old table, and though she’s never had a claim to Emily Paige feels as though she’s lost something.

;;

“You ok?”

Emily’s frozen, half-dressed, eyes locked on her phone. Paige taps at her shoulder and she recoils, jerking the phone from Paige’s sight.

“What’s up?” Emily says, failing at nonchalant.

“I asked if you were ok. You seem a little out of it.”

“I’m fine. Didn’t sleep much last night. Math homework.”

“Right.” Paige takes in the tension of her stance – she looks ready for a fight. “If you’re sure nothing’s wrong.”

There’s a flash of wildness in Emily’s eyes but then she’s back to her usual inscrutability. She turns from Paige, reaching into her locker.

“I’m sure. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Frustration surges in Paige but she tamps it down. It’s not her place to get involved, especially when Emily’s shirtless and half her mind is busy pretending that doesn’t matter.

“See you,” she says. “Get some sleep.”

;;

There’s a new girl. Maya. Her family moved into the DiLaurentis house.

Paige has purposefully not paid her attention. She’s pretty, and the less Paige knows of pretty girls the easier things are. Other people have taken notice, though.

“New girl goes both ways,” Noel Kahn says in the hall, loud enough to be overheard. “She and Fields look close. Can you imagine filling that sandwich?”

Paige’s fists clench but the fight leaves her when she follows his gaze.

Maya is putting her books away; Emily’s next to her, leaned against a locker. They’re not suspiciously close, not touching at all, but the look on Emily’s face is new to Paige, soft and tender and almost wanting.

Paige is sure Emily’s never looked at Ben that way.

They break up before long, Emily and Ben. There’s talk of an altercation in the locker room, Ben fighting with Toby Cavanaugh over Emily’s honor. It sounds absurd, and as Paige listens she thinks of Emily’s expression, wonders if it’s not Maya people should be talking about.

;;

Emily starts missing practice.

It’s not egregious at first, just a day here and there, but there’s a definite change in the way she competes. Her turns get looser, her form sloppier. Swimming doesn’t seem to hold her full attention.

It gets easier to beat her, and while Paige is working as hard as ever she knows it’s as much about Emily’s decline as her own improvement.

Coach Fulton pulls Paige aside one day, asks if she knows what’s going on.

“I don’t,” she says. “I’m worried, though.”

Coach Fulton nods, her eyes troubled, and sends Paige back to the pool. She barely notices when Paige ties a school record ten minutes later.

Paige gets it – how talented Emily is, how much the team needs her – but it still stings that though she’s the one placing first now no one can see past Emily.

Then Emily stops coming to practice at all, and Paige forgets her wounded pride. It’s nothing compared to going days without a glimpse of Emily, weeks without a conversation. She’d thought the danger was in getting too close, but every time she passes Emily’s empty locker a sick hollowness spreads through her chest.

She’s the undisputed best on the team now, but it’s not the same without Emily.

;;

Paige doesn’t go to homecoming. No one asks her; guys seem to be picking up on her lack of interest. She hears plenty about it Monday, though – Toby skipping town, wanted by the police, Emily left in the hospital.

It’s not lost on Paige that Emily has become someone who gets talked about; the attention Alison loved has attached itself to the friends who survived her. Emily used to pass mostly unnoticed but now eyes follow her wherever she goes. It’s understandable – she’s clearly caught up in something, and as much as Paige wishes she knew what it was she’s just one more person in the audience.

;;

Emily and Maya are sitting in one of the alcoves outside school.

Paige has been avoiding them lately. She has to walk by to get to class, though, and while she stares down at the sidewalk she can’t escape their words:

“So you’re asking me out on a date?”

“Two friends, having dinner, going to the movies. No big.” After a pause - “Yeah, I’m asking you on a date.”

And Emily smiles, lovely and shy. (Paige is looking now – how could she not be?) Emily smiles and she doesn’t deny it; she lets its meaning settle over her.

Paige walks away with quick, shaky steps, blackness eating at the edge of her vision. She goes to the same bathroom stall where she sat with the letter, concentrates on breathing in and out.

Emily asked Maya on a date. Emily is dating a girl.

She’s wondered about it forever, whether Emily might be like her. She saw it in the way Emily was with Alison, hoped for it in the smile Emily used to give her.

It’s beyond hints and intimations now, though. Emily is dating a girl, is moving from feelings into practice, and suddenly it seems impossible for Paige to go on denying what’s inside her. Emily is out there living it, and if she can do that Paige can at least admit to herself what it is she wants. It’s not like she’s been successful fighting it, anyway – all that’s gotten her is a crosshatch of scars and another secret she has to hide.

So she gives up, once and for all, lets the thoughts she’s tried everything to rid herself of take on the weight and texture of truth.

She wants to be with Emily. She wants to be the one Emily smiles at, lovely and shy.

More than that she wants to be with a girl; even if she gets over Emily that’s not going to change. The life her father has planned for her evaporates in front of her eyes.

He’s going to kill her when he finds out.

;;

Emily kisses Maya in the cafeteria.

No one pays attention. It’s a non-event, simple and common as saying hello.

Emily kisses Maya in the cafeteria and Paige wishes she knew what it felt like for things in life to be that easy.


	6. who deserves a pretty tangled dream

At the end of a race skill and conditioning give way to how much you want it. Paige has always been good at that part, forcing herself past the pain, finding a last reserve of strength to get her hand to the wall before anyone else’s.

Lately, though, it’s been getting harder. With Emily gone expectation settles on her; its weight suffocates in the last few meters. She can’t stop thinking about the people depending on her to win, coach and the team and her father in the stands, and even when she does there’s no thrill to it. Winning feels like fulfilling a duty – one she’s barely adequate to, one at which she could’ve always done better.

On the ride home her father quotes college times, reminds her how much she still needs to improve.

;;

Maya leaves town. Word is her parents are sending her to rehab.

It’s hard to believe: she didn’t exactly read as an addict. It’s also hard to believe Emily would date someone like that, but then, Paige reminds herself, it’s been forever since she talked to Emily. She has no idea what Emily’s life is like anymore.

;;

Someone puts things in Emily’s old locker. Paige is about to rip into whichever underclassman thought they had the right to claim it when she recognizes the jacket hanging inside. It’s Emily’s, unquestionably.

Emily is  _back_.

Paige grins all the way to the pool.

;;

It’s not what she expects, Emily rejoining the team. She figures there’ll be an adjustment period, a slow reshuffling of things as Emily fits herself into how the team works now, how it’s had to work in her absence. It’s bound to take time for her to get back to where she was: it’s not like you can just show up for practice when the mood strikes without paying a price for all the training you’ve missed.

Except Emily can, apparently. She explodes expectations from the minute she’s in the water. The rules of the universe don’t seem to apply to her, because forget recovering fitness: she’s faster now than she’s ever been. Paige hears her times in disbelief, struggles not to be left behind. By the end of her first day back there’s a new pecking order and Paige is not the one at its top.

;;

Emily isn’t what Paige expects, either. She’s changed and maybe that was inevitable, but it’s unsettling how little trace there is of the girl Paige used to know. Because she did know Emily: they may not have been the best of friends but there was something between them. Whatever ease or connection they had is gone, though, vanished so completely Paige wonders if it even existed outside her head.

Emily looks at her like she’s a stranger. Worse, actually – like she’s an enemy. Paige doesn’t blame her: in admitting to herself that she wants Emily she’s stopped being able to interact with her like a normal person. Words get twisted between her brain and mouth, and what starts out friendly and teasing sounds like a threat when it leaves her lips.

Half the time Paige means it to be: she’s legitimately angry – at what Emily makes her feel, yes, but that’s an old resentment and she’s learned to keep it from consuming her.

What’s fresh and new and devouring is her anger at how easily the world forgives Emily. Emily abandoned the team, just stopped coming one day without explanation and it cost them the meet against their biggest rival. That’s not ok, and yet no one seems to care: a few good times and everything’s forgotten. Coach Fulton lavishes Emily with praise, the freshmen treat her like a celebrity and even the seniors who’ve never liked her go out of their way to be welcoming.

It’s driving Paige insane, how much credit Emily’s getting for just showing up. Paige has been there every day, working herself to exhaustion, swimming the maximum races allowed at every meet. She’s been killing herself to fix problems Emily caused but suddenly Emily’s back and she’s the team’s savior and it’s like Paige doesn’t exist anymore.

Paige refuses to let that happen; one way or another she’ll make herself seen. When she can’t beat Emily in the pool it comes out in words, in cruelty that would make Alison proud.

“We all know what team you really play for.”

Paige aims at her own weakest points, says the things that would make her run and hide.

Emily doesn’t cower, though – she’s not the shy, passive girl from freshman year. She draws herself up and steps toward Paige.

“If you want to beat me, work harder,” she says.

Her eyes flash and there’s grit in her voice and her politeness dissolves into real, raw feeling. It’s the hottest she’s ever been, and after she leaves Paige has to lean into the lockers to catch her breath.

;;

Coach Fulton finds out about the comment. She calls them in to talk about it.

Emily covers for Paige, which is strange since she has to be the one who told. She looks at Paige, says there’s nothing to talk about and for what feels like the thousandth time Paige wishes her eyes gave something away.

;;

Emily gets anchor for the next meet.

It’s there on the lineup sheet, and though Paige wills her name to switch with Emily’s the letters stay in their neat black lines.

Her father won’t accept this. He’s not happy with her anyway, with how her progress has plateaued. He’ll see this as a regression and Paige has no idea what lengths it’ll spur him to.

It feels like everything’s slipping through her fingers: the anchor spot, next year’s captaincy, the attention of the scouts who’ve started coming to meets. Emily will be there to catch it all, will barely have to try in taking it from her.

Tremors roll through the foundations she’s built her life on; it won’t take much more to make them give way.

She walks to the pool, hoping some laps will help clear her head. Emily is there already – of course she is. She’s all the places Paige wants to be.

At the sight of her emotion floods through Paige. It all mixes together, anger and frustration and jealousy, turns dark and knotted as it twists through her chest. It tangles with the want that’s still there in her, the desperate craving for Emily, threads through her lungs and curls around her heart and squeezes until it feels like she’s about to pass out.

Things build in her until they’re too much for her body, until her hands shake with the stress of containing them.

The next thing she knows her hand is on Emily’s head, holding her underneath the water.

;;

Afterwards Paige runs outside,  _what have I done_  screaming through her head.

;;

At dinner her father asks about the lineup. She doesn’t lie – he’d find out soon enough anyway.

The table goes deathly silent.

“Can you get it back?”

“I’ll try.”

“That’s not what I asked. Can you do it?”

“I’ll get anchor back,” she says, unsure it’s the truth, unsure she even wants it to be.

;;

The next morning she and Emily tie. Paige pesters Coach Fulton about it, because even tying took an effort she won’t easily repeat (because talking to Coach keeps her away from Emily and the hate that must be there in her eyes.)

Coach Fulton holds firm – they’ll settle it by swim-off.

“So I guess we’ll just figure this out tomorrow,” Emily says, and Paige doesn’t understand why Emily’s still talking to her. The things she’s said, what she did yesterday – she’s given Emily more than enough reason to be done with her.

But though it’s clear she doesn’t like Paige, Emily’s stubbornly, steadfastly nice. Which makes it harder to ignore the shivers her voice sends up Paige’s spine.

“You figure it out,” Paige says. “I need to win.”

She escapes to the showers, wondering if that will be the thing that makes Emily give up on her.

;;

Paige can’t focus that night.

She’s got an essay to write and math homework to do but her mind is filled with Emily.

She’s dreading the swim-off – losing to Emily, or winning and wondering how long it’ll last – but that’s not the source of her preoccupation.

What she’s realizing is this: people are going to find out.

Her father is going to find out. It’s inevitable, a question not of whether but when. The things she’s feeling are too much to hold back; what she did to Emily proves that.

It feels apocalyptic, the idea of her father knowing. It’s beyond Paige’s abilities to imagine, and she wonders if it wouldn’t be better to disappear and spare him the knowledge of what she is.

She feels the same way she did that day at the lake house, only this time Alison’s not around to keep her going.

She gets on her bike, ends up in front of Emily’s house. Emily comes downstairs at her text, which is a kindness Paige doesn’t deserve. And she does more than that: she reaches for Paige, says  _are you ok_  and  _I don’t hate you_  and the insanity of her somehow still caring is more than Paige can bear.

“I’m sorry, Emily,” she says, and as she bikes away through the rain she thinks maybe she’s done something right, given herself a good note to end on.

The road is slick under her tires; the wind picks up and lightning flashes and she goes sprawling on the ground.

It’s almost disappointing that she can get up.

;;

It’s a good kind of strange, sitting in the stands and cheering for Emily.

Emily looks at her right before she dives in, finds Paige out of all the people there in the crowd. Paige smiles, warmth spreading through her.

Afterwards they swim together.  _For fun_ , Emily says, and Paige remembers what it used to be like, just her and the water and sometimes Emily, possibility stretching to the horizon.

;;

Things come crashing down the second her father walks into the cafeteria.

Paige didn’t think he’d do this, but maybe she should’ve known – he wasn’t nearly angry enough about her not getting anchor. Or he was, apparently, because as he talks at Mr. Fitz his words drip with venom. He’s just shifted his anger to new targets: to the school, to Coach Fulton.

To Emily.

Paige sees her face, the betrayal she’s trying not to show because she knows the whole world’s looking at her.

Later Paige finds Emily in the hall. She tries to explain it, that she’s not like her father, that she’s not the reason he thinks this way. It doesn’t work: even Emily, it seems, has a breaking point.

And then Emily’s mother stands up for her in front of the entire school, says all the things Paige wishes she were brave enough to and she has to try again, has to make Emily understand.

She gets into Emily’s car, breath coming fast. Emily doesn’t want to hear her, though, and Paige is so desperate to get it out that the words go wrong again. Emily gets angry, and she’s so, so gorgeous in her anger, and everything Paige has held back for years explodes in her lips on Emily’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that's it. I've tried writing through season one but this was meant to be a fill in the blanks sort of fic and I have trouble writing scenes that get shown on the show. I am working on a second part to this that would follow Paige's development off-screen season 2 (and hence be a hell of a lot happier), but it's taking a while.


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